


No Detached Truth

by Anarhichas



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-23
Updated: 2013-09-23
Packaged: 2017-12-27 10:33:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/977724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anarhichas/pseuds/Anarhichas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Armin was the Smiling Titan that ate Carla?</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Detached Truth

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt on the meme: http://snkkink.dreamwidth.org/2848.html?thread=4103968#cmt4103968
> 
> Concrit is more than welcome!

“Why?” Eren’s face is terrible in its confusion. It looks vulnerable, betrayed and not understanding the reason for it – like it’s been lied to, broken open, and his eyes are desperate as they search Armin’s. As if the answer is written there and he only has to understand before everything will be okay again.

“Why?” Eren says.

Armin doesn’t know why. His world is crumbling around him and he doesn’t have the smallest shred of comforting knowledge to cling to. No logic or reason, no detached truth to justify the monsters.

Even as he kneels he is limp, exhaustion making his muscles tremble, his limbs ache and bones weak. Gut clenching, lungs pathetic, heart beating far too fast, Armin feels like his body is about to give up, lie down and die. But he cannot let his head fall; he cannot break the connection of their eyes, still searching. He cannot let go of this last thing between them.

“Did you know?” Eren is still asking questions no one has answers to. Armin can see, as his mouth is open for ragged breath only – no words, nothing to make things right – that the wild hope is dying in Eren’s fanatic eyes. It is replaced by a raw, horrible fury. Pain and anger so overwhelming it’s like looking at the sun.

Eren has been betrayed too many times now.

“Armin.” The word is Mikasa’s, tight and controlled, as sharp and furious as the blades still in her hands. More reasonable than her brother, she wants to know the future, not the past: “Whose side are you on?”

Armin looks up at her. He wants to say, _yours_ ; he wants to shout it, scream it, beat it into the earth for the whole world to see forever and ever, because it’s true. It is – it must be – he knows so because he would die for them, live for them, do anything and everything for them. He would carve out the broken heart from his own chest if only they asked for it.

But how can he say that? He might have saved them this time but how can he ask anyone to trust him now that they all know what he’s done?

So Armin says nothing. He is guilty and nothing can ever change the fact. The wind blows freezing and he doesn’t have the strength to wipe away the cold sweat trickling in his eyes, over his lips and into his mouth.

“But why?” Eren’s voice is a river of anguish. His hands are balled into fists.

Why? Armin doesn’t know. He doesn’t know why he did it, or why he hadn’t remembered until now – except no, that’s not true. He knows he remembers and always has remembered. He’d already known even before Eren had confided in him, tears and snot and fear and hate. He’s remembered since it happened – how his body had lumbered and how he had looked over the roof tops. How he had seen the trapped woman, the screaming children and the man who had saved them. How he had picked up the woman, broke her back and ate her whole. Because he wanted to. Because he could.

He'd remembered the taste of her: thick blood between his teeth, lean flesh and sharp edges of bone in his throat. He'd remembered how delicious she was – more so than anything else he can dream of.

Afterwards he had told himself that the memories were a figment of his imagination. That it was impossible so the only option left was that he’d made it all up. Stress and fear and the strange fallacies of the human mind allowed those memories to be wrong. He’d told himself that there was no other option.

And he’d believed it. Wholly and unfalteringly because to not believe was unacceptable.

As Armin kneels in the dirt, looking up at the two people left he loves more than the entire world, he wants to say that he is sorry. He doesn’t. How pathetic, how selfish – he is the creature that murdered their mother, who stole their childhood, their smiles and their games. He turned Eren’s goal away from awe of the outside world and brought it to the joys of slaughter and hatred; he took away Mikasa’s life so she could protect her brother’s instead. And he had known all along, no matter what lies he’d forced himself to believe in. No apologies can change that. He has no right to say anything at all.

Armin drops his head then and looks to the ground. He is so very tired. It is the only thing that tells him this isn’t a nightmare – he has never wanted to sleep in a nightmare.

Eren grabs his collar then, lifting him onto legs that refuse to stand steady. Armin has time to think, _at least Eren cannot hate me enough to beat me when I’m already at his feet –_ then pain bursts like knives across his face, shooting back through the sockets of his tight shut eyes to crawl into his spine. It smashes away the thoughts like cobwebs. Another blow lands, and another. It feels like his bones are on fire. Eren lets go of his collar and Armin folds gracelessly to the floor; Eren follows.

It is not long before Armin loses track of how many times Eren’s fists beat the soft tissue of his face, feeling only blinding agony as his nose breaks and his teeth rattle loose. Both of his eyes swell shut and he’s never in his whole life been in so much pain. It swells in his spine, burning, like knives slicing through muscle and bone. It sits in his damaged heart. It panics him. Armin fights back – it’s instinct and he cannot stop himself, but as weak as he is he achieves nothing.

Mikasa is still there, looking on and doing nothing. Armin knows even though he cannot see her. He cannot hear her over the wet thud of fist on bruised flesh and broken bones, or his own pitiful cries.

Eren is crying too. “You’re just one of them,” he says, words like curses, uneven and wet. “I’ll fucking kill you; I hate you–“

The punches stop after what feels like an eternity. Armin hasn’t the strength to do anything but lie there – not even to curl up, to move his arms and protect his beaten face. Blood drips to the ground from his nose, his open mouth, twisted into globules of saliva like dye in glass marbles. It runs into his eyes, his ears. It coats his tongue, his teeth, the raw gums where his teeth are knocked out. It slides down his throat and makes him want to vomit.

“Eren, stop.” Mikasa’s voice is thick and twisting, all wrong.

“He’s one of _them_ ,” Eren spits out. His words are heavy with tears. “All this time he’s a traitor – he deserves to die. He – he–”

There’s a sudden touch to Armin’s jaw, gentle, but even the weightlessness of the air hurts – the touch is like a slap. He thinks he should have flinched, had his body been anything other than the sack of dead meat it is now, but all he can manage is to slowly crack open one eye. The sun blares and the figures around him are smudged outlines only. The blade above his face is bright.

“I’m sorry,” Armin says, a distorted whisper. He knows has no right to say it but he cannot not; the words slip out of his fractured mouth without permission, and he is frightened – so frightened. Visceral terror grips him and will not let go.

Neither Eren or Mikasa say anything and Armin closes his open eye. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he begs, fumbled and inelegant. The words are disgusting and cheap but he doesn’t know how else to pour out his soul, how to say through a broken jaw all that he feels – the shame and the fear, the horror and crushing self-hate. He loves them with all his heart. He is a monster and nothing can ever make up for what he’s done. But he doesn’t want to die.

“Mikasa!” Eren says, furious and wet with tears. Armin doesn’t understand what they’re saying. He trembles on the ground, wracked with small and exhausted shivers.

“If you do then you’ll never know,” Mikasa replies. Her voice is is quieter but no less wretched.

There is the sound of blades scraping against their sheathes, a sound they have all heard more times than anyone can possibly count. Armin’s breath catches in his throat as hands hold his shoulders. “I’m sorry,” he begs, barely comprehensible.

“Yes,” Mikasa replies, and pulls him up – she is sitting, and she holds him to her like a child, head tucked under her chin, so close he can hear her heart beat softly. Armin turns his face into her chest despite the pain, clinging to her, and sobs until he can almost believe that the world still is, and will be, all right; even now, truth so exposed, he cannot stop lying.


End file.
